Henna, disappointed by the kiss, was wondering whether to offer some of her sweets to Ricky-Rashid, and was taken utterly by surprise when he suddenly pounced on her. She jumped as though stung when she felt his clammy hands on her bare skin beneath her sari blouse, and despite her heavy sari, nimbly slipped away from him and off the bed. Ricky-Rashid was acting like one of the villains in the movies that she’d watched, and was doubtless planning to beat her - perhaps this was how husbands behaved from their wedding night onwards. No wonder her mother was dead and all her aunts such grouchy miseries.

‘I won’t let you,’ she said warningly. She wouldn’t let her big bully of a father beat her, or anyone else who had ever tried, and she certainly wasn’t going to allow this milky-faced academic to succeed where so many others had failed. Her eyes flashed scornfully at him.

Ricky-Rashid’s heart wilted like the drooping rose he was still holding. His attempt at manly domination had gone horribly wrong, and from being surprisingly enthusiastic, Henna now wouldn’t let him near her. And no wonder - he’d acted like a thick-booted oaf. An intelligent, spirited beauty like Henna should be wooed, not tamed. That’s what he’d intended when he came in with his rose and poetry - he was going to proffer her the flower on bended knee and read her the romantic verse that he knew she loved. But her tossed-back head and invitation to a kiss had distracted him, and in the ensuing liquorice-induced confusion he had let his baser instincts take over. Intending to apologize, he walked around the bed towards her, but she simply skipped over to the other side, looking at him warily. Her scorn was dreadfully attractive, and his hand still tingled from the brush with the naked skin of her slim waist.

Defeated, and embarrassed, Ricky-Rashid sat heavily on the bed. ‘I’m so sorry. I wanted this to be a wonderful, romantic night for us. And I’ve already ruined it.’ He turned to face her and held out the flower to her. Took, I brought you a rose.’ He sighed and put it down next to him.

Mollified, Henna sat back on the bed, a little way from Ricky-Rashid, and continued eating her sweets. ‘You are silly,’ she said. ‘How could trying to beat me possibly be wonderful or romantic?’ She picked up the rose and sniffed it disinterestedly. ‘I think it’s dead,’ she said, dropping it dismissively on the floor. She nudged the pink flower head experimentally with her prettily painted toes, separating out the soft wilted petals.

Ricky-Rashid looked at her in astonishment. ‘Beat you? Why on earth would I try to beat you?’ His surprise was so genuine that Henna realized she may have misunderstood his intentions, and perhaps given away her ignorance in some indefinable way.